Parliamentary Speeches
Transcript: Today program - Channel 9
06 Oct 2008LISA WILKINSON: Well, the Federal Government is putting the modelling industry on notice, with a new campaign to replace skinny girls with real looking women.
Under the plan, magazines will be asked to feature normal-size models, disclose when images have been digitally enhanced and asked to limit diet and cosmetic surgery ads.
But will a campaign make any difference? Here to explain is Youth Minister Kate Ellis and Darrianne Donnelly from plus size model agency BGM.
Do we have the minister there?
KATE ELLIS: We certainly do, Lisa.
LISA WILKINSON: Ah, good morning to you, Minister.
Can you tell us exactly how this will work?
KATE ELLIS: Well basically, we know that body image is a soaring concern amongst young Australians, that it's coming back time and time again and that these pressures are just growing incredibly amongst our teenagers. So we think it's time for national leadership.
We've got children as young as six being admitted to hospitals with eating disorders and we need to act. So what we've committed to doing is providing leadership on this, bringing the states together, having a look at the different schemes that are around, and one of them is, countries overseas but also the Victorian state government has introduced a voluntary code of conduct. Now, I've committed to us exploring this further, seeing whether this works at a federal level.
And what it would mean was, we work voluntarily with a whole range of stakeholders, the fashion industry, the media, the advertising industry, health professionals, and we try and promote healthy body image and just take some of this pressure off of particularly teenage girls.
LISA WILKINSON: We're looking at some of these images now that we're so used to seeing, particularly off the catwalks.
They are incredibly alarming, you know, under any other circumstances, you would swear that these girls have come out of some sort of prison camp.
How will you actually police this? How will it work actively?
KATE ELLIS: What we've seen from the international experience is that the most effective way is when we work cooperatively with the different industries, and we need to be really clear that it's not because of skinny models alone that we have younger and younger people suffering from eating disorders. This is a really complex issue and there's a whole range of different factors, which is why we want to sit down and work with these different stakeholders cooperatively.
So we want them to sit down with us and say, one, we want to make sure that we have healthy models, but two, it would be really nice if we saw a diverse range of different body shapes out there in the media as indeed we do in the community every day.
And I know that there are some companies who have started going down that road. And I think that the Australian public responds very well and says that's something we want to see, that's something that as consumers we'd support, healthy bodies out there promoting goods.
LISA WILKINSON: Minister, I don't think anybody would disagree with you. This does need to change. What I'm trying to work out is how you will actually monitor this, like what sort of penalties will apply if a magazine, for example, doesn't follow this, if they continue to use girls who clearly don't look well?
KATE ELLIS: Well as we've said, this is something that we are now committing to exploring further and acting upon. So I don't want to pre-empt that too much, except to say that I think that the way that this works is we sit down with the magazines, we sit down with the fashion industry and we say okay, let's just be clear about what is acceptable and what's not, and what sort of messages we're sending out.
LISA WILKINSON: [Interrupts] One...
KATE ELLIS: And we bring about much greater awareness about this as well. I mean, one of those images - one of those issues is the issue of using altered images, using pictures that don't even look like the models themselves so that people are aspiring to look like unattainable body shapes.
I think we need a lot more transparency around these issues, and I hope that we'll be able to work cooperatively to introduce that.
LISA WILKINSON: Well Alice Burdeu, who is Australia's Next Top Model from last year, she's weighed in on the debate, particularly when it comes to photoshopping, and she says they even photoshop politicians on their how-to-vote cards. Have you ever been photoshopped?
KATE ELLIS: Well I certainly hope that they'd come out a little different if they were. I'm afraid that was all me.
But, you know, there is a very serious point here that - the answer to your question is no, I don't believe that I've ever been photoshopped. But there's a difference between fixing up flaws or changing skin tones and actually entirely changing body shapes that - you know, giving people waists like Barbie dolls because whereas the debate was once about kids aspiring to look like Barbie dolls, at least we knew they were dolls.
LISA WILKINSON: Yep.
KATE ELLIS: We're seeing pictures, photos which we think are real women and we think that these are attainable goals, and frankly they're not.
LISA WILKINSON: Well Darrianne, if I can bring you in now. You know about real women, you run a modelling agency that has models who are much more representative of what real women look like.
The editor of Vogue has also weighed in on this debate, and she says that slim, skinny models belong on the escapist pages of glamour magazines. Do you agree with that?
DARRIANNE DONNELLY: Absolutely not. Of course with my agency, which I've had for 13 years, I promote a realistic image of all women, and I believe that they should be seen across the board in all magazines.
And I mean - the thing that I read in yesterday's paper what Kirstie Clements did say about 13-year-olds being in Dolly magazine, for example, and not being attainable and basically she said that but I thought, well who buys Vogue at 13? Thirteen-year-old girls aren't looking at Vogue magazine.
LISA WILKINSON: What do your models say to you when they come back from a go-see at a magazine, to see if they can get some work.
DARRIANNE DONNELLY: Basically for my agency, it is purely - all my models go along at once, but there has been cattle calls where they've gone and they're disgusted. I mean, these girls are so thin they can barely hold their model book, for example. It's not a realistic image at all.
LISA WILKINSON: Who do you blame, because the fashion industry, the glamour industry is very good at pointing the finger at the next link the chain? The magazines say, but it's the fashion designers. The fashion designers say it's the public, the public says it's either magazines or Hollywood. Like, where does this circle begin?
DARRIANNE DONNELLY: Personally, I think the designers have a lot to answer for. They're the ones that are manufacturing the clothing, they're the ones that are doing the designs, and they continually come out and say that they refuse to sample in a larger size, it's too cost... it's not - it's too much money.
I think that the designers actually should be made, as part of the government forum to - insist that designers make a size if they, say, go from size eight to 16, make a size 10 sample and make a size 14 sample, which then will transpose across to the magazine editors.
I have magazine editors that call me up and say, Darrianne, we want your models but it depends only if we can get samples from the designers.
LISA WILKINSON: Ah ha.
DARRIANNE DONNELLY: That happens all the time, and I think that is a really important point to make, that the designers have to...
LISA WILKINSON: [Interrupts] See if they'd put their money where their mouth is.
DARRIANNE DONNELLY: Absolutely.
LISA WILKINSON: Yeah.
DARRIANNE DONNELLY: And the other thing that has to be addressed, from where I sit, is that Australian women don't know what size they are. They don't know - everyone's messing with their heads.
LISA WILKINSON: Mmm.
DARRIANNE DONNELLY: You can go into one shop, you can be a size 12. You can go in another shop, you're going to be a size 14.
LISA WILKINSON: That's very true.
DARRIANNE DONNELLY: When people call me the first thing I ask is what dress size are you, and they'd go, well actually today I could be a 14, tomorrow I could be a 16. I could be a 12 or 14, I could be an S, an M, an L, a one X, a two X, a three X.
LISA WILKINSON: Yeah.
DARRIANNE DONNELLY: Nobody's actually done a national measuring circuit of Australian women. That will be very easy to do, websites can do it, people can measure themselves...
LISA WILKINSON: Isn't that a good idea.
DARRIANNE DONNELLY: ...and also measure their height, their bust, their waist, and we can have what is an Australian size 12.
LISA WILKINSON: Minister, just very quickly, when will all of this come in?
KATE ELLIS: We've asked the newly formed Office for Youth to look at this as a priority issue, so this is something we're working across government with state governments and we'll now sit down and try to work with stakeholders to get some action on this as soon as possible.
LISA WILKINSON: What does as soon as possible mean?
KATE ELLIS: Well, it means we formed the Office for Youth two weeks ago, we've asked this to be one of their first priority issues and...
LISA WILKINSON: Okay.
KATE ELLIS: ...it's something that we'll be exploring into the new year.
LISA WILKINSON: All right. I think it can't come soon enough.
Thanks very much, Minister, for your time this morning.
And Darrianne Donnelly, thanks very much.
DARRIANNE DONNELLY: Thank you.
LISA WILKINSON: Some good ideas there.